The only disability in life is a bad attitude

These words in the headline were written by a young man who has endured twenty different operations to help with a congenital birth defect. He is only 4’ 2” tall and his mother has just been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

He is an ardent Baltimore Ravens fan and sent an email to John Harbaugh, the coach of the Baltimore Ravens just before the Super Bowl. (Ravens won, lest we forget.) Basically, he told the team to not whine and find excuses (life isn’t fair, he said) but to fix their attitude. Did they ever.

To emphasize the point, I give you this quote from Charles Swindol (a well-known evangelical Christian pastor from Frisco, Texas), “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than success. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. We are in charge of our attitudes.”

Yes we are!

The reason this is so important today is that things are getting better and the owner’s attitude should reflect these good times; otherwise the troops will continue to wallow in self-pity and just not believe what the customer is saying, “We want to buy flooring. We want to buy better and different flooring. We are ready, are you?”

Ultimately, the attitude of your employees really comes from you, the owner. There has been a dark cloud over our industry and practicing survival skills is not a positive experience. Sure it might have made you stronger but also bruised and a little negative. These were external forces that caused your business to wobble and you spent untold hours just trying to keep the ship afloat.

But that is history. Now all employees must be part of a winning team built on professionalism and exuding a positive attitude about the store, the town and the future. This will not be done by sending smiley faces to employees. It will come from articulating the “future is green” attitude about everything you do.

Now is the time to reaffirm what’s great about your business and how and why all need to be on board. No more telling stories of near death experience at the Rotary club or church group. Stories of change, new ideas, great products and new opportunities — that is the story all employees should tell and believe in.

Trust me, the customer can feel the positive vibe. And they love it. People want to be with a winner; customers love to buy from someone who loves their job and is passionate about their company, their special line of LVT (as an example); she absolutely loves that atmosphere and it transfers to her every time.

As an extra benefit consider this: “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”